Where Immortals Once Walked

Chapter 565: All Out Deceit

So this guy’s actually backing down a step? Fushan Yue glanced at He Lingchuan, then laughed. “Since you’re offering so graciously, we’d be rude to refuse.”

The three of them strolled into Little Qianjin Lodge. The frontage of the restaurant was modest, but its appointments were refined. Even the tea served to guests was a top-grade lotus-scented brew.

Since the post station housed many envoys, there were always a few tasteful establishments nearby where people could conveniently meet over lunch or dinner.

This place specialized in green-red wine[1], which was a type of rice wine. Its color was mellow and luminous, like red amber, and its flavor lingered with a soft, velvety smoothness. It was perfect for a quiet drink among acquaintances.

Each dish that came out was small but meticulously prepared.

Bai Ziqi picked up some crab crisps[2] and popped them into his mouth. It crackled loudly between his teeth. “This restaurant’s specialty is red fermented rice lees. Try it. It has a distinctive flavor.”

Naturally, the lees left over from brewing green-red wine could also be used in cooking. These tiny freshwater crabs were dry and hard with barely any meat to them, but once fried in oil and dressed with red lees, they became the ideal drinking snack. They were crisp, crunchy, and easy to eat by the mouthful. It was very easy to unknowingly go through twenty or thirty of them.

There were also sliced snails in red lees and eel in red lees, each with its own flavor, but there was no need to go into all of them one by one.

Fushan Yue got straight to the point. “What progress has been made on the elixir of youth case?”

He knew that although Bai Ziqi had only recently returned to Lingxu City, the details of the investigation at Baishajue must already have been sent back by messenger birds during the journey home.

A bureaucratic machine of this size could not possibly rely on Bai Ziqi alone to handle an investigation.

“We’ve continued digging along the trail connected to that actor. You may not know this, but during our return journey, there were two more fires in Lingxu City’s West Dui District, and one witness we had just uncovered suddenly died before he could even be put in prison.” Bai Ziqi swirled his cup lazily. “The people behind this case are keeping very close watch on it as well.”

He Lingchuan said, “Which means the real mastermind is indeed hiding in Lingxu City.”

Otherwise, their response could not have been so timely. They had been cutting off the clues as soon as they appeared.

Fushan Yue caught the implication at once. “Then can the investigation still continue?”

“It can.” Bai Ziqi took a sip of wine. “And we have another lead as well, one they cannot erase. Do you remember when I said that the great shell carried on the snail toad’s back might be a magical artifact from some ancient monster immortal?”

Fushan Yue had an excellent memory. “That Mud Palace? It seemed to be called Snail Dwelling, right?”

“Yes, and then there’s that painting He Xiao found in Mai Xuewen’s study.” Bai Ziqi continued, “Both of those things are connected to the Azure Palace.”

He Lingchuan spoke in an even, objective tone, “Judging from the methods Mai Xuewen has used in the past, it’s entirely possible he intended to steer suspicion toward the Azure Palace.”

Back then, in order to lead him and Zhongsun Mou toward investigating Cen Boqing, Mai Xuewen had deliberately worn cloth produced in Baishajue and cooked local specialties from Baishajue at the house in Shuanglu Town.

The man’s schemes ran deep, and even more frightening was his patience, as he could seemingly persist at one thing for years on end.

“Whether deliberate or not, it still proves he has some connection to the Azure Palace, which makes it a lead worth pursuing.” Bai Ziqi smiled and added, “Besides, if it helps us uncover the mastermind, what does it matter if he’s the one leading us there?”

Fushan Yue took a bite of eel. “I remember that more than ten years ago, a batch of treasures was stolen from the Azure Palace. The scandal spread all over Lingxu City. There were even rumors that it had been an inside job by the guards themselves. But in the end, only a handful of items were ever recovered, and the whole matter just faded away.”

“Yes. I was just planning to go look through the case files from back then.” Bai Ziqi sighed softly. “It won’t be easy, though. The Azure Palace investigated the case internally at the time.”

“That mud palace magical artifact is highly distinctive. A veteran of Lingxu City like Deputy Cloud Envoy Bai should know what it was the moment you heard of it. Mai Xuewen very likely intended it to tie back to that old case from more than ten years ago. Could it be that he bears some grudge against the Azure Palace?”

Bai Ziqi nodded. “Several people died in that old case, all of them disciples of the Azure Palace. I’ve already begun investigating their lives and backgrounds.”

Then he looked toward He Lingchuan and abruptly changed direction. “The reason I came looking for He Xiao today, however, is that I still want clarification on one doubtful point in the case. I had originally intended for Cheng Yu to assist with another matter, but after his arrest, he died suddenly. So I must now ask you in all seriousness, how exactly did you escape Cheng Yu’s attack and then turn the tables on him?”

Back in Baishajue, whenever Bai Ziqi posed this question, He Lingchuan had evaded it or glossed it over. However, they were now in Lingxu City, the territory of the Heavenly Palace and the cloud envoys!

Even with Fushan Yue sitting at his side, if He Lingchuan refused to answer, Bai Ziqi could easily pin him with a charge of “failing to cooperate with an investigation.”

He Lingchuan let out a breath and gave a bitter smile. He had known there was no avoiding this.

“Deputy Cloud Envoy Bai truly insists on getting to the bottom of it?”

Bai Ziqi answered gravely, “I want an answer.”

He had little in the way of evidence, but for no obvious reason, this matter continued to trouble him deeply. After years spent handling investigations, he had learned to trust his own intuition. At times, it was even more useful than evidence.

“Cheng Yu, at Cen Boqing’s request, sent a yin spirit to take my life.”

“A yin spirit?” Bai Ziqi asked. “You mean a summoned ghost?”

A curse master using spirits to kill was nothing unusual. But before death, such a ghost might once have been a local tyrant, a great general, a famed worthy, or even a greater monster. Their souls were powerful, their divine techniques formidable, and so they did not always dissipate immediately after death. If a curse master could capture one and refine it by secret methods, there was a small chance of producing a yin spirit of immense magical power.

But because such yin spirits had been powerful in life, they remained arrogant in death. They retained a strong will of their own and would not necessarily obey a curse master. In some cases, they even had to be properly venerated before they could be persuaded to act.

Of course, they were still ghostly entities.

He Lingchuan had said before that Cheng Yu worshipped an idol in that inn room.

Now the two accounts fit together.

“That’s right.” He Lingchuan pointed at his own eyes. “What he didn’t know was that I was born with yin-yang eyes and can see ghosts and other sinister things. When a huge yin spirit came lunging at me, how could I possibly fail to notice it?”

He really did possess yin-yang eyes, though it had not been bestowed by heaven, but rather was one of the perks granted by the divine bone necklace to its wearer.

Bai Ziqi listened intently. “What did the yin spirit look like?”

“It had dozens of faces all over its body—male and female, old and young. The moment it screamed at me, my head started spinning.” He Lingchuan stroked his chin as he added, “Right, and it could produce multiple clones of itself as well.”

“Dozens of faces? Then it must have devoured other ghosts?”

“Possibly.”

“And how did you drive it back?”

He Lingchuan hesitated. At once, Fushan Yue said unhappily from the side, “With me here, what are you afraid of?”

Bai Ziqi cast him a glance and smiled. “Don’t trouble yourself. I only want to understand what happened. I have no ulterior motive.”

He Lingchuan looked from Bai Ziqi to Fushan Yue and then, at last, took something out of his storage ring and dropped it onto the table.

With a dull thunk, it landed heavily.

The two men focused their eyes on it and saw that it was actually a violet-gold pestle. At its head was carved a strange beast with bulging eyes and a wide mouth, while beneath its feet hung four rings. Treasure light shimmered all over its body.

The instant Fushan Yue saw the pestle, his face nearly slipped. Holy shit, this brat was actually carrying a treasure like this?

Unable to resist, he patted the carved beast at the top.

The thing suddenly let out a furious roar, a sound halfway between a tiger and an ox, so loud it made people’s eardrums ache. Both Fushan Yue and Bai Ziqi were startled, and even the diners outside the private room exchanged baffled looks, unsure what sort of monster had just acted up.

Fortunately, Fushan Yue had excellent self-control, or he might have yanked his hand back on the spot.

Bai Ziqi had no need to hide his reaction. His face was openly astonished. “A divine artifact? No, this is a quasi-divine artifact!”

What He Lingchuan had taken out was none other than Sun Fuping’s violet-gold pestle.

The great State Preceptor Sun had ultimately fallen to the heroic spirits of Panlong City and died in the Panlong Desert. This treasure had therefore become one of He Lingchuan’s spoils of war. He later exchanged it with Songyang Mansion in return for materials to repair his saber. Since it was a quasi-divine artifact, and because He Lingchuan had already discerned that there seemed to be some prior entanglement between Li Qingge and Sun Fuping, Songyang Mansion had likely never intended to sell the pestle lightly.

So he had tried simply asking to borrow it.

And, unexpectedly enough, he had actually succeeded.

As for why he did not try to use the Soul-Stealing Mirror to deceive Bai Ziqi off instead, that was because the mirror spirit itself had confessed that it had once belonged to a Beijia noble and had been rather well known, only to be stolen out later. If Bai Ziqi happened to recognize it, then He Lingchuan would be saddled with the additional charge of being a thief of stolen treasure, which would only tangle matters further.

“That’s right.” He Lingchuan pointed to the beast-head on the pestle. “This is Yazi, which abhors evil spirits and banishes them at the sight of them. Yazi motifs are also often cast onto the ring pommels of sabers and sword hilts purely for their auspicious symbolism. However, this pestle or staff is different. It contains an actual sliver of the soul of the ancient Yazi, refined into an artifact spirit.”

Back when he was still in Heishui City, he had known little of such things. When Sun Fuping wielded the pestle to command wind and rain, He Lingchuan had only thought it powerful. It was only as his experience grew, and his knowledge of magical artifacts and monsters deepened, that he came to understand just how powerful the pestle truly was. It was no wonder that, when he took it to Songyang Mansion for appraisal, it had been enough to draw Li Qingge out personally.

Sun Fuping had brought this pestle to seek the Generous Pot because the Panlong Desert was thick with wrathful souls, and the pestle happened to counter them perfectly. Otherwise, back when he set up an array in the Panlong Ruins to oppose the heroic spirits of the Gale Army, how could He Chunhua’s mere hundred-odd soldiers possibly have held them off?

The violet-gold pestle had contributed immensely.

A treasure of this caliber had long since passed beyond the category of ordinary magical artifacts. One could not simply put a price on it in gold and silver. Back then, He Lingchuan had thought he had made a killing when he traded it for the Wu Metal needed to repair his broken saber, one hundred thousand taels of silver, and three months of free forging from a grandmaster artisan.

But from Li Qingge’s point of view behind the scenes, she had probably looked at him the way one looked at the biggest fool alive.

No wonder she always laughed so delightedly every time she saw him afterward.

After all, who would not enjoy laughing at a fool?

“This pestle is supremely hard and supremely yang in nature. It once belonged to the state preceptor of another state and has long been saturated in origin energy. It is the bane of ghosts and sinister things.” He Lingchuan let out a breath. “That yin spirit had no idea I could see it. It came swaggering in, thinking killing me would be effortless, only to be ambushed and wounded by me instead. It was an extremely difficult battle, but in the end it slunk away in dejection.”

Fushan Yue glared at him.

He Lingchuan interpreted that look as: So you kept this hidden all along because you were afraid I’d make a move for it?

Bai Ziqi extended a hand in polite request. “May I?”

He Lingchuan replied that he was welcome to.

Bai Ziqi gently stroked the beast head. The Yazi actually seemed to enjoy it and remained quiet. The talismanic runes running over the pestle’s body almost seemed eager to leap into the air.

Isn’t this thing supposed to hate being touched by strangers? He Lingchuan shot it a deeply contemptuous look. Are you perfectly happy to welcome them so long as they’re against me, is that it?

This thing had always looked down on him in the past, and evidently, that had not changed.

With just that single caress, Bai Ziqi could already tell it was a genuine quasi-divine artifact, and he could not help but be moved. “An excellent treasure. These talismanic runes are incredibly powerful monster-subduing spells!” Even with his breadth of knowledge, he could not immediately decipher all of them. “I truly hadn’t thought you’d have used such a treasure to repel a yin spirit.”

1. Also known as qinhong wine or Fuzhou green-red rice wine, a kind of rice wine. ☜

2. This is probably just crab-flavored deep-fried crackers, similar to prawn crackers but crab-flavored. ☜